The foreign policies of dictatorial regimes in Europe : Germany, Soviet Union & Italy : Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini

Abstract

This thesis provides a study and an analysis of the expansionist foreign policies of the dictatorial regimes which emerged in Europe post World War One and continued to exist until 1945 and even during the Cold War. In an attempt to discover the roots of expansionism and the reason for their existence, although the issue is widely debated amongst world renowned historians and experts in the field, one can safely identify an evident link between expansionism and nationalism fuelled by inheritance historic ambitions coupled with ideology and geo-politics. These elements painted the picture of Europe in the interwar period which was responsible for a large extent to the breaking of the Second World War, as well as the later ideological war between the capital west and the Communist Soviet Union as a result of the continuation of the soviet expansion of ideology.